More free stuff just made Skiff more shady and dubious. How are they supposed to afford all that?
Free stuff is only possible if the company is running on VC money and is planning to sell later. They don’t have to worry about long time revenue.
Same goes for adding features. Skiff kept adding features but who maintains those ? Who would fix the bugs etc? No one cause they were planning to get sold off anyway. For example, people are having issues with downloading large files from Skiff drive now and they can’t do anything about it.
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I remember that there’s a Reddit thread a few weeks ago asking the same question. They said, they got the fund that would let the business runs for another 5 years easily 
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Not sure how to verify this either besides taking companies at the word, but it does look like Tuta is also completely owned and operated by their CEOs. They talk about this in their writeup of the Skiff Shutdown.
I think it can probably be verified via https://www.handelsregister.de I’ve used it to look up German company information before.
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I remember that!
There were several people on their subreddit that asked how long they’d be around for too, to which they replied things like “We’re in it for the long haul” etc.
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This isn’t positive at all. This is unsustainable. You should pay for the products you use… people need to learn that.
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It would really depend on who is funding and why. I do know that had we taken vc funding offered during the dotcom boom, we’d be dead now. Growing organically is the only reason we still exist. There isn’t enough rapid growth for vcs, and most want a quick exit strategy.
Whether or not buy-out offers have been turned down isn’t criteria here. We turned down a couple of buy-out offers over the last couple of decades. Despite all this and demonstrated longevity, we still dont get recommended here. We are totally FOSS, fully self-funded, and around since the mid-90s. So I’d agree that criteria need to change. 
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May I ask what software you are talking about that you develop and what relationship you have with it? These are things that should be disclosed in discussions such as this.
I’m part of packetderm, our latest offering is codamail.com. We get judged because our effort goes into mail services, not website design. I’m not complaining, we are doing fine, nor am I trying to get included, I’m just exiting a decade long social media hiatus and participating again. So I thought I’d put in my .02 on this topic.
Instead of selling, we chose to consult and build them a service, or the part they wanted. Although, we did turn one down flat due to philosophical differences.
If you are FOSS, where can I see your code repos?
What part are you referring to? You can find roundcube framework on roundcube.net. You can find gnupg, dovecot, sendmail, etc too. If you are asking about management scripts, milters, or custom plugins, no, we have not published those.
When I asked them about it, they claimed most of their revenue came from business tiers. Yes, perhaps the free stuff contributes to them being more shady, but the other positives still stand. Again, I’m not defending Skiff, but trying to imagine future projects. My point is that we may not want to be too overly harsh towards future companies for the chance that they may really end up being a great and longlasting providers in their respective space
I would agree, but it was not the case that this was unforeseeable with Skiff specifically. They had done plenty of shady things even outside of the buyout. I won’t list them here but they’re documented in the remove Skiff thread, to the point where even if Notion didn’t buy them there was a great chance they would have been removed regardless. Also just look at the original discussion where they were extremely pushy in wanting to be recommended on PG and resorting to techniques like guilt tripping. You have to wonder what made them want it so much.
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It’s a conundrum. Early start-ups will always be a risk, whether VC or self-funded. VC wants ROI and self-funding risks financial drain. Long-term services can run into issues or decide to sell. Huge companies do fail, too. Anyone can talk the talk, and maybe even walk it, but for how long will always be an unknown variable. Things happen.
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Yes, that is all true. All of those factors warrant a stricter evaluation for future recommendations, I just believe there needs to be a balance for companies that don’t seem to have those obvious flaws.
Yes, exactly. It is a conundrum. I suppose the debate would be whether it’s worth taking the risk with any recommendations. It’s hard to define, but if the risk is always present, some sort of policy of how to approach that risk with PG recommendations is needed.
Rapid growth might be something to weigh. It will make or break a company. And if they spend a lot of time touting numbers, then they are trying to impress someone, maybe new users, but more likely new investors or maybe a buyer.
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What is there to say? It was quick. Bye Skiff; will not be missed.
Shady company doing shady business; there was no other way but to shutdown.
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Thats not completly FOSS for me